Today, user equipment that combines mobile computing functionality with mobile phone functionality such as smart phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) and the like, are becoming increasingly popular. These devices are usually equipped with multiple wireless network interfaces including a cellular network interface (provided by a cellular radio on a device) and a Wi-Fi interface provided by a Wi-Fi radio on the device.
Typically, the user equipment accesses a macro cell, a pico cell, or a femto cell using the cellular network interface while the user equipment accesses Wi-Fi access point using the Wi-Fi interface. In wireless network standards, pico cells, femto cells, and Wi-Fi access points are commonly termed as small cells. The small cells are generally deployed to improve indoor coverage and cell-edge user performance and boost spectral efficiency per area unit via spatial reuse. The small cells either operator deployed or user deployed and may coexist in same geographical area, potentially sharing the same spectrum or a different spectrum.
For accessing the small cells, typically, the user equipment continuously scans for one or more small cells when in idle state. This may lead to significant amount of wastage of battery power as most of the times the user equipment may perform continuous passive scans for detecting small cells even when there are no small cells in vicinity of the user equipment. Continuous passive scan for small cells reduces battery life of the user equipment by almost half between consecutive charges.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.